


Belated Birthday Presents

by Kiiratam



Category: RWBY
Genre: Canon Compliant, Cooking Therapy, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Yangst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-02
Updated: 2019-11-02
Packaged: 2021-01-18 16:02:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21279431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiiratam/pseuds/Kiiratam
Summary: Yang's lying in bed. It's the day after Hallowe'en, and she didn't get her sister anything.Takes place during the Volume 3, Chapter 12 time-skip. (My BMBLB fic index)
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 14
Kudos: 66





	Belated Birthday Presents

It was the 1st of November (if only technically), and Yang felt terrible. It wasn't just the phantom pain of her missing arm - an aggravating itch in the palm of her hand that she couldn't do anything about. Ever. Though that wasn't helping.

  
She'd missed Ruby's birthday. Not forgotten it; she had been conscious of it. She just... hadn't been able to get out of bed. Hadn't been able to crawl out of her own pain long enough to just get up and make cookies for her little sister. Like she had for years.

  
Her dad had done it. Had even swung by, mixing bowl in his arms, and offered her some cookie dough. Yang hadn't even pretended to be asleep. She couldn't even bring herself to care. Didn't even want the cookie dough. Had just sulked when Ruby had come up to offer her some of the baked cookies. There hadn't even been any missing from the platter.

  
The little bit of old Yang that Adam hadn't killed was screaming at her. Yang rolled over, hugging her pillow. Wondering if she should be crying over this. She was almost used to the odd, one-and-a-half-armed hug. This was her new normal. She had to get used to it. She didn't have to like it.

  
She breathed in, held it, breathed out. Yang didn't know when she'd started using Blake's breathing trick. If she'd realized it, maybe she wouldn't have started. But she had, and she was already dependent on it. It made her less likely to snap, and strangle old Yang.

  
Maybe she'd want her old self back someday. No point killing her before then. Too much effort.

  
Was this where she was? Just pulling out aspects of herself, looking at them, and deciding whether or not to keep them? What was next, self-lobotomy?

  
She snorted. Maybe she'd miss, and turn her Semblance on permanently. Heck of a way to get a power boost. It would fit for a backstory on one of the villains in one of Blake's books. 'The Crimson-Eyed Dragon,' or something. Driven by trauma to try to fix herself, and only managed to break herself more. And make herself a threat to other people. Depending on the story, she could be a force of nature that the heroes managed to kill, and only learned her story later. Or maybe they'd learn her story first, and try to save her. Only to have her cripple or kill one of the heroes in the big climax. And then do the same thing in the next book, when they thought of a different approach. And maybe, just maybe, she'd find redemption in the third book of the series. Or finally be put down, like the mad dog she was.

  
Yang wished she could make herself read. It wasn't like she could really help around the house. Or comfort anyone. If she was going to be useless, at least she could lose herself in different worlds, where she was only expected to watch.

  
Maybe she could go up to the attic, and dig up the TABARZIN 20,000 books she'd stashed with her dad and Summer's figures. The whole utterdark tone would fit her mood. Maybe she could actually get more than two pages.

  
Later, maybe. It was still the middle of the night. Yang checked her scroll. No, it was later than that. Earlier. Dawn was only an hour away. Another sleepless night. _Trying_ to sleep might help with that.

  
But sleep was another battle. And Yang wasn't eager to charge back in. So it was just more lying here. Waiting. Stuck in her own head.

  
_Breathe in, hold it, breathe out._

  
Yang found herself getting out of bed. Listening to not-quite-dead-yet Yang.

  
"Better late than never." She mumbled to herself.

  
It took a few moments for her legs to really wake up. She changed clothes, and it gave her a burst of energy. Enough to get her downstairs, into the kitchen. Even if she did have to sneak past Zwei, sleeping on the couch again, instead of his doggie bed. If he woke up, she'd have to get him to move to his bed, and she didn't have the energy for that fight. Even though she suspected her father didn't have the energy to fight it either. Zwei was family and his sad-eye-beams were crippling.

  
Yang had cookie recipes memorized. She'd learned them from Summer- well, sort of. Summer had made the recipes with her, but Yang had been too young to _really_ help. She'd showed Yang all the steps, and held her arms and helped her do the stirring. But Yang had come across her recipe book afterwards, and Ruby had been hungry, and...

  
The first batch hadn't turned out well. Ruby had cried, but she'd still eaten them. With enough milk, they were soft enough to eat. And Yang had kept practicing. Even if Ruby was definitely more of a hindrance in actually producing cookies. She had a mania for cookie dough, and chocolate chips, and- it was a wonder Yang had managed to teach her to make cookies.

  
But it wasn't Ruby's birthday anymore. She'd missed it. Yang knew that if she made cookies, Ruby would still eat them. That was just a fact of life. But they wouldn't be Ruby's Birthday Cookies. Just cookies. Yang couldn't make up for that.

  
It was almost enough to make her give up and try to haul herself back to bed. But her hand was already lifting her rose-patterned apron down off the hook, and tying-

  
Not tying it. Yang looked down. This was stupid. She couldn't even tie her apron in place, how was she supposed to mix cookie dough? It wasn't like they had one of the fancy electric mixers. Just awkwardly hold it between her chest and stump, and awkwardly mix with her off-hand? ...Only hand.

  
_Breathe in, hold it, breathe out._

  
Yang reached around her back and grabbed the other apron tie. Slowly, awkwardly, she looped it into a slipknot. Her apron was hanging a bit odd, and she tucked the extra length of the tie into the apron pocket.

  
She couldn't do things her normal... her old way. New normal. Have to make a new normal.

  
What didn't need two hands? Yang ran through her recipes. Peanut butter bars had a ton of mixing, and and then you had to transfer the mix to a dish. Pass. Chocolate chip cookies had less mixing, but they were always a bit finicky about proportions, and Yang needed this to work. Anything fancy - anything that she'd have to get Summer's cookbook out for - was right out. Now was not the time to try new things. Just try to do something she already knew- had already known how to do.

  
Peanut butter cookies? She could mix it by hand, if she had to. Yang checked the baking cupboard. Her dad must have used all the chocolate chips. She checked the pantry. _And_ they were out of peanut butter. **Heck**.

  
A thought scurried across her mind, and she wanted to push it away. But... 'when you're losing, cheat harder.' She'd taken five falls to her dad's zero, and she was getting frustrated, especially with Ruby and Qrow shouting from the sidelines. And Qrow had called that out. Or something like it; it had been a while, and she hadn't been paying that much attention. But she knew how Qrow thought. The goal was to win, not to have a fair fight. Yang couldn't break her dad's stance. So she triggered her Semblance, broke the ground, and tackled her dad when he mis-stepped.

  
How did you cheat at baking cookies?

  
Don't bake cookies.

  
Yang closed her eyes, and clutched the side of the counter. She didn't want to think about Blake. But she had already stolen her breathing trick. Blake had left, just leaving fragments behind. ...The pieces were still worthwhile. Maybe if Yang put enough of them together, she could-

  
What? Forget? Move on? Cope?

  
Yang didn't know.

  
But it might help.

  
Or it could just be chasing shadows, embracing pain, to no benefit whatsoever.

  
_Use what you've got. Can this recipe use almonds instead of vanilla? How about rum?_

  
No one understood losing better than the Faunus. And they were still around.

  
Use what you've got.

  
Yang checked the shelves, pulling out what she thought she could use.

  
Graham crackers, check. She wasn't sure what she could have used instead, so that was good. It was only a single package, but it still looked good. Milk, yes. Yang was technically dipping into the medicinal whole milk, but it was only a few tablespoons. She'd had to pull out the stepladder to get to the cupboards above the fridge, but it was worth it. Her dad didn't keep much booze in the house - mainly because Qrow drank it - but he did keep a bottle of brandy hidden. Mostly for guests. If he noticed any was missing, he'd just assume Qrow had found it, and re-hide it. Yang didn't really need to know where it was hidden, but she'd also been hiding cookies from Ruby in this kitchen for years. She knew where to look if she needed it. For some reason. It wasn't like it worked for Strawberry Sunrises.

  
And then there was where the improvisation came in. Yang needed sweet stuff. Her dad didn't keep frosting in the pantry. And they were out of chocolate chips, so she couldn't just melt those and pour it over the top. With Ruby and her sweet tooth in the house, the pantry was looking pretty bare of anything useful.

  
Yang had a half-full jar of strawberry jelly. Some preserves that were so old she couldn't even tell what they were. But they had Summer's handwriting on them, so she just stuck those back in the pantry, where they'd been. A mostly empty can of whipped cream. And some fresh strawberries from the garden.

  
Strawberry jelly filling it was. Yang washed the strawberries, and patted them dry. And braced herself for the tricky part. She got out a cutting board - larger than she'd normally use, and the sharpest paring knife she could find. And then it was just a slow, awkward process of roughly chopping the ends of the strawberries off, and tossing those away.

  
Blowing out a breath, Yang set the small knife down. And went and got a bigger knife. Mincing the strawberries... just switching hands would have been difficult enough. Using her off-hand and not having another hand to manage the pile, keep everything neatly ordered - it wasn't fun. But it did, eventually, mercifully, work. Sort of. It was less of a mince and more of a very rough chop. Good enough.

  
Yang scraped all the jelly she could out of the jar, dumped it into the bowl she'd gathered the mutilated strawberries into, and tried to mix it.

  
It wasn't working. There just wasn't enough liquid.

  
She looked in the fridge. Apple juice? Sure, why not. Yang added a few splashes, and kept stirring. It was more of a sludge than anything, but as long as it was spreadable... She grabbed a spare spoon, and took a small experimental bite. It might not look like much, but it wasn't bad.

  
Yang had to hunt around before she found the pastry brush. She only used it for cinnamon rolls, and she didn't think her dad used it at all. Which was why it had migrated all the way to back of the utensil drawer. At least she'd finally talked her dad out of keeping the ladles in there, too. They had gotten stuck every week, and Yang didn't have the patience to fix it. Or swear to any god or person who might be listening while pulling on the drawer.

  
Milk and brandy, she mixed together, and brushed the first cracker with, setting it on a plate. Then the strawberry-apple sludge got glommed on, spread as best as she could, and covered with another milk and rum covered cracker. Followed by more strawberry, then another cracker, then...

  
Yang shook the whipped cream a few times, trying to judge how much was in it. Not much at all. She squirted a couple of dollops on top. Shrugged, and emptied the rest into her mouth.

  
A bit more than she was expecting. Yang wiped her mouth with her apron. She took a step back and looked at the Blake-cake. It... was not a work of art. Practically, she admitted to herself, it was hideous. But it might actually taste okay. It was a lot of sugar, milk, and booze. Hard to really mess that up.

  
She grabbed a bit of paper, and wrote, in the crude block letters that her hand could manage, 'Happy Late Birthday, Sis.' Yang stuck the plate in the fridge, and tucked the note under it. Maybe Ruby would leave her some, and she could taste how well her improvisation had turned out.

  
Yang piled up the dishes she'd made in the sink. Later. She thought about leaving another note, that she would clean everything up... but she wasn't sure if she'd have the energy. No broken promises.

  
Making it back to bed took... more effort than it should. Sleep. Maybe she was tired enough not to dream?

  
Have to risk it.

  
Yang pulled her blanket up to her chin, and turned to face the window. Maybe she'd be able to wake up with the sun. Like normal.

* * *

  
_A sneer beneath a white mask. "I thought you'd abandoned me, little dragon. Let's make up for lost time."_

  
_ A crimson blur, the only light left in a blackened world._

  
_ Yang screamed._

**Author's Note:**

> Blake-cake, or graham-cracker-cake, [is still real](https://cannedpeachesproject.com/graham-cracker-cake-mimica-cake/). This is just more of a traditional (read, slap-dash) approach than in [Bees who ought to be in Bed: Late Cake](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20889557).


End file.
